Our Andean Roadtrip

Before we moved to Bolivia, we spent two years driving around Montana speaking and showing pictures about our future ministry wherever we were allowed.  Before that, we spent a couple years in training, which required us to drive half way across the US six times, as well as a few inter-state trips for our linguistic practice in the Cherokee Nation.  All that to say, roadtrips were a way of life for our family.

That all changed when we moved to Bolivia and spent more than a year and a half without our own car.

For those of you that don't look at our ministry website, you wouldn't know that we have purchased a vehicle, a 1997 Nissan Patrol (read about it here).  I'm not sure how to explain this gross oversight, except to say that I was too busy finishing my Spanish program to post about it here.

At the end of December, we had to go to Santa Cruz for a conference.  Of course, we elected to take the 300 mile drive rather than spend $500 on plane tickets!

We started, of course, at our home altitude of 8760 feet above sea level.  We then crossed 12,100 feet as we climbed out of the Cochabamba valley and made the massive descent to Villa Tunari, at 1000 feet, then shot southwest through the jungle to Santa Cruz.  The trip down took 11.5 hours (9 to return).

We had fun making a video of the first, more exciting part of the trip, as we plunged into the jungle, without a clutch:

The story of the clutch is quite simple:  taking our first roadtrip after 2.5 years just two days after Christmas wasn't brilliant.  I did not take the time to check the fluids and the clutch reservoir was a bit low.  I bought a can of brake fluid at the gas station in Villa Tunari, topped it off, and proceeded without any more problems.

Along the way we saw lots of interesting sights, including a truck attached to a loader by a cable and lug wrench:

A one-lane bit of highway, due to landslides, one of several places where the road is falling down the hill:

And some boys hanging out the back of a station wagon at 60 mph:

The trip really gave us a good chance to see some parts of Bolivia that we hadn't seen as well as get used to the car.  It also gave us the opportunity to try out my little Garmin GPS that I brought from the States.  It's a handheld unit made for trekking, hiking, etc, but I have used it for driving in the past.  The problem is that there have been no good maps of Bolivia!  I recently got a very good one thanks to OpenStreet Maps and we put it to good use.  I liked it so well on the trip down that I bought a suction cup mount for the ride home:

Don't worry, the speedo is in kilometers per hour, not miles. ;)  We hit a top speed of 130 kph (80.7 mph) on the journey.

Jungle Fishing Adventure!

Some of the men in our church have wanted to do a men's fishing/camping retreat for quite some time.  We finally got something pulled together and 8 of us went over the weekend.

We left home at just after 4am on Friday morning, destination: Chapare.  The Chapare is Cochabamba's jungle province and is notorious for things other than just being the source of the best fish and fruit available.  We were headed to the family "farm" of a lady from church.  Her husband works the place with his brother, raising bananas, yucca, cacao, noni, copoazu, lumber trees, and a few other varieties of exotic fruits/plants. 

None of us were sure of what to expect when we got there.  I think all of us were expecting to be "roughing it" more than we did.  Some were relieved, some were disappointed.  Turns out, we had a mostly-covered tile floor to set up tents on, a bathroom, and a kitchen.

Another disappointment was the fishing.  The only fish biting on our stretch of the Rio Chapare were sardines and vagras (a small catfish).  We chose to be thankful and enjoyed drowning some worms, and pulled in a few.  I caught 10 the first night.  The next night, we went swimming and scared most of the fish away, so I only caught one.  My friend Hector pulled in this monster, though:

You'll notice that most of us were not using fishing poles, just line and a hook with a worm on it.

Because of the slowness of Saturday night, I decided to go by myself early (5:30) on Sunday.  It's been a few years since I watched the sunrise over the peaceful noise of a river.  It was nice, and I pulled in 7 more.

The hardest thing about the trip for me was our host.  Although he was an enjoyable guy, he obviously viewed me as some city boy that was (in his words!) "dressed up for an African safari."  Ironically, I was dressed as I do every day, other than the new fixed-blade knife I had purchased the day before.  He spent the majority of the weekend treating me like a 10-year old kid that needed to learn how to live in the woods (ha!).  He even baited my hook for me when we went down to the river. :P  It was a good opportunity for me to intentionally set aside my pride and the security of my own experience and humbly accept his instruction.

The best thing about the trip for me was time with friends.  I had a great time hanging out with the guys (I wish more had gone!).  We fished together, swam together, played dice together, cooked together, and talked about God's Word together.  I also had the first opportunity to really expound on something that I was thinking, biblically, in a group.

More photos of our adventures here: Jungle Fishing Adventure!